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October 10, 2013

[He has accepted that in an ideal world Rahul
Gandhi, the politician, has no right to exist because, as the son, grandson and
great-grandson of prime ministers, he is a product of dynasty and not of merit.
He has even asserted that he will not have children because he does not want
the temptation of promoting his own. Yet he has not been able to win the
affections of India’s new urban middle class, which is unable to forgive him
for being the beneficiary of a privileged family. But then so is most of
India’s elite, including New Delhi’s political observers.]

By Manu Joseph

NEW
DELHI — In the gloss of Indian journalism, an “enigma” is a public figure
who does not grant interviews or private briefings. The “enigma” is often not a
mystery to his own mother or even to the public, but he is to journalists.

Rahul Gandhi, the vice
president of the Indian National Congress party, which heads the government,
has that reputation among New Delhi’s political observers.

It is extremely rare for them to accept that
they do not know something, especially with regard to the personality of one of
the most powerful men in the country. In fact, the gravest insult in their
circles is not the charge that one is corrupt, or spineless, but that one is
ignorant of politics and politicians. They do, in their private conversations,
claim to possess startling insights into the man. But when they put their
bylines to their views there is a wide consensus among them that Mr. Gandhi,
who is set to be the predominant face of the Congress party in the general
elections next year, is inscrutable.

His seemingly enigmatic ways were in the news
the past two weeks after he gate-crashed a news conference, made a brief
dramatic statement and then went back “to work.” At the heart of his action was
a ruling of India’s highest court.

Usually when the Supreme Court has invoked “the
collective conscience” of the nation, it has been to hang a person. Yet, it is
in its happier observations that the court has truly captured such a
conscience. The court has long been, and with a greater frequency in recent
times, the best ally of the average Indian. In July, it ruled that it is
illegal for politicians who have been convicted of crimes to continue holding
office by means of the traditional ruse of filing an appeal against their
convictions. The court said that convicted members of Parliament or legislative
assemblies would have to vacate their seats from the day of their conviction.

The governing coalition introduced a bill in
Parliament designed to override the ruling, but did not succeed in getting it
passed. It also filed a petition with the Supreme Court asking for the review
of the ruling, but the court dismissed the petition. To achieve its end faster,
and through the backdoor, the coalition then prepared an ordinance, and sent it
to the president of India for his
signature. The coalition argued that the court’s ruling would inspire
politicians to press spurious charges against their rivals and, somehow,
procure criminal convictions too.

The Supreme Court is often wise and idealistic,
but the spirit of the Indian Constitution deems all institutions subordinate to
the collective will of the people or, in other words, their elected
representatives, who can overrule the court if they close ranks. More than 30
percent of India’s elected representatives face criminal charges. All major
political parties have a stake in protecting the criminals in their fold. And
they did appear to stand united as the governing coalition worked hard to save
convicted politicians from losing their seats.

But then, on Sept. 27, something unusual
occurred when Ajay Maken, the communications chief of the Congress party, was
holding a news conference to defend the ordinance. As he was taking a question,
he began to look distracted. He rose, saying that he had to take a call. A man
standing nearby showed him a mobile phone, which Mr. Maken took, walking away.
He soon returned with Mr. Gandhi, who appeared angry. Mr. Gandhi said of the
ordinance: “This is complete nonsense, and it should be torn up and thrown out.
It is my personal opinion.”

He then said that he would restate his view, and
did so.

The immediate reaction of many of New Delhi’s
political observers was of knowing derision. They suggested that the news
conference was staged to make Mr. Gandhi look good, and wondered where his
righteous rage had gone when the governing coalition headed by his own party
had framed the bill and the ordinance to protect convicted representatives. But
some observers pointed to the more probable cause for his outburst, which was
that Mr. Gandhi did not always get his way with the powerful chieftains within
his own party and had to resort to the guerrilla tactic of hijacking a news
conference to reach out to the nation. The coalition has since abandoned its efforts
to protect convicted representatives.

Mr. Gandhi is an unimpressive orator in all the
languages known to him, and he is reluctant to face tough journalistic
questions, adding to his famed inscrutability. He is not very popular with the
urban middle class, which suspects that he is too closely aligned with the poor
and that he would pour billions into their welfare instead of building
beautiful highways with neat white lines down the middle. But he has
systematically assumed the image of a politician who has an acute sense of
morality, a young man who is negotiating a world filled with wily old men.

He has accepted that in an ideal world Rahul
Gandhi, the politician, has no right to exist because, as the son, grandson and
great-grandson of prime ministers, he is a product of dynasty and not of merit.
He has even asserted that he will not have children because he does not want
the temptation of promoting his own. Yet he has not been able to win the
affections of India’s new urban middle class, which is unable to forgive him
for being the beneficiary of a privileged family. But then so is most of
India’s elite, including New Delhi’s political observers.

Manu Joseph is editor of
the Indian newsweekly Open and author of the novel “The Illicit Happiness of
Other People.”

[India’s trade deficit contracted to $6.7 billion in September, from $10.9 billion in August, the Ministry of Commerce and Industry said, as exports jumped 11.2 percent from a year earlier. The export number represented the third consecutive month of double-digit expansion, as demand from overseas was buoyed by a weaker rupee, which has helped make Indian goods cheaper for purchasers outside the country.]

ByBettina
Wassener

HONG
KONG — India’s trade
deficit dropped to its lowest level since early 2011, data released Wednesday
showed, providing a rare piece of good news from an economy that has been
weighed down by inadequate infrastructure, a gaping current account deficit and
a currency that has plummeted in recent months.

India’s trade
deficit contracted to $6.7 billion in September, from $10.9 billion in August,
the Ministry of Commerce and Industry said, as exports jumped 11.2 percent from
a year earlier. The export number represented the third consecutive month of
double-digit expansion, as demand from overseas was buoyed by a weaker rupee,
which has helped make Indian goods cheaper for purchasers outside the country.

At the same
time, imports plummeted 18.1 percent as a string of government measures aimed
at curbing demand for imports like gold took effect.

“The government
has taken conscious steps to curtail imports of nonessential commodities,
essentially precious metals. That is working out as the government intended,”
India’s top trade civil servant, S.R. Rao, told Reuters.

Heavily
dependent on imports of oil, gold and other items, the Indian economy has long
run a trade deficit — a phenomenon it was able to support as long as foreign
investors, lured by years of growth and the market potential of 1.2 billion
consumers, poured into the country.

Butthe picture has changed
dramaticallyin recent
years. Investors have grown increasingly frustrated with the government’s
inability to tackle age-old problems such as creaking infrastructure and
stifling red tape. Decision-making has been complicated further by elections
scheduled for next year. And growth has dropped from more than 9 percent in
2010 to less than 5 percent this year.

This, combined
with a widespread exodus of foreign cash from emerging markets around the
world, has dragged down the rupee sharply in recent months, prompting several
government steps to prop up the currency and avert a wider crisis.

The measures,
and a degree of confidence instilled by the new governor of the Indian central
bank, whotook office last month,have helped stabilize the rupee in
recent weeks.

On Wednesday,
the rupee was trading at 61.83 per U.S. dollar — much firmer than at its low
point of nearly 69 per dollar, reached in late August. But it remains far
weaker than a year ago, for example, when $1 bought only 53 rupees.

Although this
has helped exports, analysts cautioned on Thursday that the trade deficit could
widen again in coming months as demand for gold picks up in advance of a key
festival season, which begins this month.

“The September
data has come as a big positive surprise. However, we do not expect such a
trend to continue, given that seasonally the ongoing quarter tends to witness a
higher trade deficit,” Upasna Bhardwaj, an economist at ING Vysya Bank in
Mumbai, told Reuters.

Also reflecting
the drag on India’s economy, the Asian Development Bank last weekslashed its growth forecastfor the country to 4.7 percent for
this year, from the 6 percent it had forecast in April, before the sell-off in
emerging markets sent the rupee skidding lower. For next year, the ADB now
forecasts growth of 5.7 percent, rather than the 6.5 percent it had projected
in April.